First Salvo (3 page)

On the Soviet ship,
Bodry
,
her captain decided it was time. He rang up full speed, then called his engine room to insure that his chief engineer had personally assumed the watch. “We’re moving in now. I want your senior men at the controls.”

The chief engineer acknowledged the orders with a growl. He’d been called down to the engineering spaces to assume the watch three times now. The captain had changed his mind each time. Before they departed Vladivostok, they had gone over the operation with the type commander. Then the squadron commander had done the same thing. Once they were at sea, the political officer met with each department, not only for one more review but to place the operation in a larger, more glorious perspective. The chief didn’t need any more of that bullshit.

On
Bodry
’s
bridge, her captain took the course recommendation from his leading radarman to close with the American ship on a collision heading.

Stoddert’s officer of the deck remained on the port bridge wing, watching the Soviet destroyer through his binoculars. Occasionally he would take a bearing on the other ship, then check its radar range. There was no doubt in his mind—steady bearing, decreasing range, collision course. He looked in the pilothouse. The captain remained calmly in his chair, reading a western. Once or twice he shifted position to scratch, but never once did he look out on the wing or ask a question.

The captain knew the way to manage naval officers was to give them responsibility. But out of the corner of his eye, he was watching that son of a bitch. He knew after many years when a bearing was steady, and he saw by the change in bow waves that the other captain had increased speed.

“Captain,” the OOD finally called from the bridge wing after one more check on the bearing, “I think we have a problem.” He spoke very calmly, almost matter-of-factly, even though his palms were damp and he could feel trickles of sweat running down his back.

“Just a minute, Jack. Let me finish this page.” The captain never looked up.

The bos’n mate of the watch marveled at the two of them. He’d been watching the Russian and noted the change in the bow wave too, and the steady bearing. These officers were too much, but he was glad they were running
Stoddert.

The captain finished his page, turning down a corner so he wouldn’t lose his place, and meandered out beside the OOD. “What seems to be the trouble?” he asked, nodding his head toward the closing ship at the same time. “Does he want to give us a rough time today?”

“Looks like it, Captain,” the OOD answered, his binoculars concentrated on the approaching ship. “No doubt he’s on a collision course. Combat plotted it a couple of times.”

“’Bout six to eight minutes, I’d say.”

“Six is closer to it, sir, but I’ll check combat again.”

“No need to, Jack. Why don’t you sound GQ. Button her up—and make sure you sound collision quarters too, so there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind. I’ll be back in a minute. Going to the head.” Instead, he called the chief radioman and bos’n mate to his sea cabin. The captain was following strict orders not to be intimidated. He was to inform Washington of his situation, then maintain course and speed.

The bos’n mate shook his head and muttered to himself, “Sure glad I’m with them.” Then in a normal voice, “Want me to sound the alarm, sir?”

“Sure, Boats. Might as well not wait till the last minute,” he added casually.

A short emergency message sent by the chief radioman to Washington was about to activate the camera in a “keyhole” satellite 150 miles above them. No human ear would ever hear as it shifted its axis minutely to focus on the scene below.

Bodry’s captain looked up at the ship’s chronometer.
Pretty close to schedule
, he decided. He knew that at approximately this time three other Russian ships were about to do the same thing.

The commanding officer of the Russian vessel insisted on retaining absolute control of his ship. He had no intention of any orders being mistaken in transition. His radar room reported ranges and bearings of the American every thirty seconds. It became obvious to him early on that the other captain had no intention of changing course or speed.
The man must realize our intention
, he thought.
They have the right of way; the American would be a fool to react any other way.

Stoddert’s captain meandered onto the bridge wing. “Jack, you move inside and stay right there,” he said, nodding toward the pilothouse. “Don’t change your course and speed the least bit. And,” he added, “I’ll have your ass if you take even the slightest peek at him from now on.” The captain took out his pipe, dumped the dead ashes, and set it firmly between his teeth. Leaning casually against the bridge railing, he watched the approach of the other ship, nodding his response as each division reported its section of the ship was sealed.

Bodry
’s course was set to pass barely off the American’s bow. Seafaring law compelled
Stoddert
to maintain course and speed. The Russian was the burdened vessel and was required to avoid collision.

At five hundred yards, the two captains could make each other out with the naked eye. Neither gave the slightest indication of concern. The Russian ship was slightly shorter and just a bit lighter, but together they represented eight thousand tons of metal hurtling at each other with collision imminent.

The Russian was a superb seaman. At an invisible point in the ocean, he hurled an order over his shoulder, dropping his speed, and wheeling
Bodry
to port. She nestled in alongside the other ship with about ten yards to spare between them. It was a perfect maneuver, enough so that neither captain had to shift his stance to look the other directly in the face. They remained devoid of expression, waiting for one or the other to make the first move.

The wind remained steady. The ocean chop of their port bows would give
Bodry
a slight push to within feet of the other ship. Then the reverse action would push her away. The slightest variation in wave size, any hesitation on the part of either helmsman, any change in revolutions in their propeller turns, could bring them together.

Bodry
added a few turns to increase her speed ever so slightly, her increase indicated only by a few feet every half minute. Then she eased gently into Stoddert, bumping like two racehorses in the final turn, their bows grinding together. As they rose and fell unequally, the sound of tearing metal rose above the roar of the ocean washing between them. The sea forced
Bodry
away for a moment, only to bring them back together more forcefully, the contact shaking both ships.

The captains stared at each other impassively.

Inside
Stoddert
’s pilothouse, the OOD gripped a stanchion tightly, his knuckles white. He was positioned beside the helmsman, whispering encouragement. Next to him was the bos’n somehow glad that he could finally perceive sweat dripping off the OOD’s brow.

It was no different in
Bodry
’s pilothouse. The human reactions were similar, but here they also knew they were responsible for any movements, that the American would not initiate any changes. In addition, the political officer was behind them, leaning silently against the bulkhead, watching each sailor intently.

The two ships continued to bump dangerously into each other, and damage became more apparent with each contact. The Soviet captain finally accepted that there would be no winner; neither would give in. He gave the orders to increase speed. They would pull forward and alter course away from the American. But his order was reversed for an instant, just enough time for
Bodry
to drop back slightly, then be sucked by the wave action against
Stoddert.
As they bumped, a swell heeled the Russian over into the American.

Their railings and superstructures touched. The davits holding their motor whaleboats became tangled. With a grinding sound,
Stoddert
’s boat was ripped free and crushed against the bulkhead, then the steel davit of the Soviet ship tore through a bulkhead and an American sailor in the compartment behind it was instantly crushed to death.

At the same moment, the torpedo launcher on
Bodry
was ripped free. The launcher and four torpedoes were hurled into the water. The mistake in direction had been caught and corrected, and the Russian ship surged ahead, scraping the length of
Stoddert
’s hull as she hauled away to port.

Far above the two ships, invisible to both of them, the incident had been recorded and transmitted instantly to Washington. A simple electronic order was then given. With a quiet whirr, the camera perched 150 miles above changed its orientation minutely and began recording another such incident less than fifty miles away.

This time the Russians had been caught, their actions filmed. The film from outer space was clearer than slides taken at a family outing at the beach. When the Russian news agency announced the American aggression and requested UN censure, the pictures would speak for themselves.

THE WHITE HOUSE

T
here was never a word from Washington about their SOSUS system. In the Kremlin, it was an entirely different story. The Russians officially protested four separate incidents in the Sea of Japan involving U.S. and Soviet military ships. In each case, the Russians charged that American ships harassed Soviet units without provocation, causing damage and some injury to personnel. Anticipating this ploy, the White House authorized the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to distribute satellite photos to Security Council members to reinforce American charges of Russian aggression in each instance.

Well before the incidents in the Sea of Japan, however, the president learned that a relatively junior admiral had developed a series of unique war scenarios via the Naval War College computer system, scenarios that emphasized Soviet activity in another part of the world. The officer had become convinced that, while Soviet ground forces would attack with a blitzkrieg-type offense across Central Europe even before their naval supremacy was certain, defeat of the Russian naval forces in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean would stop the ground war in its tracks.

No matter the variations he programmed, three objectives continued to be paramount: 1) deny the Soviet Union control of the Mediterranean by means of the Sixth Fleet; 2) deny the attack submarines of the Soviet Northern Fleet access— via the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap— to our vital resupply routes to Europe; 3) neutralize the Soviet ability to threaten and/or carry out strategic nuclear warfare.

It was explained in more detail to the president that the Soviet Army would roll through Europe to the Atlantic coast unless the U.S. Navy and its NATO allies could support those three objectives. The point was not to allow the Russians to establish a second front on Europe’s Mediterranean shores. If this occurred, NATO ground troops would be forced to divide their strength; that would insure their defeat, since the USSR had considerably more troops, aircraft, and armor. They could afford a dual front and NATO could not. Of equal concern would be resupply of NATO forces from the United States. Soviet doctrine was based on the belief that their strike forces could overwhelm defending forces so rapidly that they would capture or destroy most NATO military stockpiles long before the shock of their offensive wore off. NATO could survive only if the North Atlantic supply routes remained open. Therefore, the Russians would attempt to flood the North Atlantic with their formidable Murmansk-based submarine force if they were allowed to escape the GIUK. The final threat—the use of strategic nuclear weapons—had to be neutralized. The president noted that there was no solution offered for the last problem.

But he knew that if somehow these three objectives could be accomplished, Moscow would either withdraw or sue for peace.

The next day the president asked for the admiral’s service jacket. Rear Admiral David Pratt’s record presented a picture of a rather different sort of officer than appeared in the forefront of the Washington scene. Most admirals that found their way into the Pentagon and then, if they were lucky, into providing military advice to the Oval Office, wore the wings of a naval aviator or a submariner’s dolphins. David Pratt displayed neither on his uniform blouse, nor was he festooned with ribbons. His only combat assignments had been early in his career in Vietnam.

Pratt was considered a maverick within the military power structure. Though not an engineer, he was involved in more new weapons planning than any other senior officer. He was also a devotee of computers as the first line of defense, and offense, for the Navy of the future—and he committed himself up front when he felt he was right. That was a rare trait among those looking forward to a successful career.

The one final aspect that became apparent to the president was that there were occasional gaps in Pratt’s service record—small, but there nevertheless—something not normally occurring with most Hag officers. A little digging brought forth the fact that Admiral Pratt was a maverick in more ways than one: he had deep contacts in intelligence sectors, both military and civilian. And word of mouth elicited the fact that Pratt still consorted with an odd variety of men, some of whom had reached the top in covert-action specialties that the military did not freely admit to.

All in all, Pratt had intriguing possibilities. As far as the president was concerned, he was the right man for the job.

D MINUS 4

WASHINGTON, D.C., A HOTEL ON K STREET

B
ernie Ryng glanced up for a moment when Pratt crumpled the latest Strategic Situation Report in his fist, jamming it in his jacket pocket. He chuckled as the Admiral growled to himself, then wandered over to look out the floor-to-ceiling window.
Always grumbling about something
, Ryng thought to himself.
It’s nice to see nothing has changed.

Pratt stared down into the jam of noontime traffic on K Street. The day was hot in Washington. He watched the secretaries in skimpy summer blouses and skirts hurrying alongside the young bureaucrats with jackets over their arms.